junior cardinal is to search him, and upon finding all right, the news is joyfully proclaimed to the crowd-mas nobis est dominus, ―our lord the pope is a man! From which use, the said seat is called sedes stercoraria, from its near resemblance to a close stool. The papists stoutly deny the whole, and pretend that the use of the sedes stercoraria was only to put the new divinity in mind of his occasions, and that he was still a mortal.-This is the reason given by Platina. If this probation of popes is not still practised, one of their own authors, Johannes Pannonius, thus gives the reason:

Non poterat quisquis reserantes æthera claves

Non exploratis sumere testiculis.

Cur igitur nostro mos hic jam tempore cessat?
Ante probat sese quilibet esse virum.

No pope of old assum❜d th' unerring keys,
But first he past the test of 's rem and re's:
And why not now that search? Because each can
By numerous bastards prove himself a man.

Hist. of Popery, vol. ii, p. 339. Great Babylon is charged, both by the ancient prophets and St John, with whoredom, in allusion to her idolatry and apostacy from the true God, which figuratively is so called, as God is the husband of the church. "Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the well-favored harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts; behold I am against thee, saith the Lord of Hosts, and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame." (Nal um iii. 4, 5.) Yet the prophecies often receive also at kteral accomplishment, as in the above FACT of a FEMALE POPE, and the adulterous, incestuous, and sodomitical practices of

many of them; and the public encouragement given to the stews at Rome, from which his holiness drew a revenue of 40,000 crowns a-year, by way of taxation, The notoriety of their practices gave occasion to frequent lampoons on the HOLY

FATHERS,

Quid quæris testes, sit mas an fœmina cybo?

respice natorum, pignora certa, gregem. Pontificis PAULI testes ne ROMA requiras;

filia quam genuit, sat docet esse marem.

Hist. of Popery.

pray

and for our enemies, and them that hate and persecute us unjustly," but also in the confident expectation that, upon the dissolution of the empire, the most dreadful calamities would befall the church, and more terrible than all the persecutions they had endured under the cruelty of the pagan emperors.*

Dr Whitby, who has a singular opinion of his own to maintain upon this subject, yet still allows that such an opinion of the τὸ κατέχον, or present impediment in the way of the man of sin, was generally current amongst the fathers and as the knowledge of that circumstance was rather matter of curiosity than use, it might have been (by the apostle) trusted to tradition, for the conveyance of it to future times. The certain truth, however, of that tradition has been well established by history and facts, Machiavel himself,t (in his history

That, together with much of the truth, the fathers held many erroneous notions of antichrist, is easily accounted for, aş the prophecy was then future.

† Bishop Newton on the Prophecies, vol. ii. p. 403. Hist. of Florence, B. i. p. 6.

of Florence,) giving evidence sufficient for the conviction of popery, without perceiving the drift of his own testimony. He has shewn the origin of the greatness and arrogance of the bishop of Rome, the gradual increase of his power, and the means by which he became a temporal potentate, and put on his tripple

crown.

"Then shall that wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and destroy with the brightness of his coming." "He who now letteth, and will let, until he be taken out of the way," as the apostle had before said, was accordingly removed, and elbow room made for his Holiness; by the dissolution of the Roman govern ment, and the exile of the last of the Roman emperors, called in derision Augustulus, which happened in the year 475. The epithet here applied to the man of sin, i avopos, ex lex ille, that lawless one,* is a pointed allusion to a

* The force of this epithet is lost in our translation, by rendering it" that wicked one," whereas it was designed to intimate the particular description of his wickedness; on account of

M M

very distinguishing part of his character, in dispensing with all laws, human and divine; absolving from the most solemn oaths; dissolv ing the allegiance of subjects to their natural sovereigns; laying whole kingdoms under an interdict,* and changing even the laws of God, and the two sacred institutions of Jesus Christ:† nay, and even compelling the realms

which, he eminently deserves the title of ò avτıxtíuv—“the Adversary," and i av'rixgisos-" the Antichrist."

*The papal interdict, which shut up the churches, and put a total stop to all the offices of religion, except baptism and burying the dead, had, in the days of superstition, the most terrifying effects. This was an impious mimicry of the majesty of the Supreme Ruler of the universe, in with-holding from offending nations the genial influences of the heaven above, and the fertility of the earth beneath :-"thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron." (Deut. xxviii. 22.)

In sect. ix. p. 252, I have remarked the sacrilegious impiety of the church of Rome in omitting the second commandment, and dividing into two the tenth, for the countenancing of idol atry. They have taken the same liberty with the sacrament of the Lord's supper, by omitting one half of it, in with-holding the use of the cup from the laity, upon the pretence that the bread, (being transubstantiated into the real body of Christ,) contains the whole body, and consequently the blood in it, without need of the wine. The other sacrament of baptism is